


with every breath a new day

by glasshalfempty



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Angst, Drabble, Fluff, Hurt and comfort, M/M, Mostly Canon Compliant, Yuri on Ice - Freeform, im gay, kind of?, pianast au, yuuri can play piano
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-06
Updated: 2017-01-06
Packaged: 2018-09-15 05:00:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9219857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glasshalfempty/pseuds/glasshalfempty
Summary: “I didn’t know Yuuri was a pianist,” Victor declares, staring at the grainy photograph.“Oh, didn’t he tell you? He plays so beautifully, but I haven’t heard him in a while,” Yuuri’s mother sighs, and Victor frowns.It’s then that he makes it his mission: he is going to hear Yuuri Katsuki play piano.





	

**Author's Note:**

> hey cora happy crimmis enjoy ur gay pianists 
> 
> for everyone who is not cora please....i wrote this in like an hour have pity on me

Yuuri can play piano.

Victor isn’t of sure the exact moment he comes to the realization. He’d noticed the weathered upright standing in the lobby at the onsen when he’d first arrived in Hasetsu, and he’d caught a fleeting glimpse of the keyboard sitting in the corner of Yuri’s room the one time he had been allowed inside, but it hadn’t really clicked until he and Yuuri’s mother were going through Yuuri’s old baby pictures. She had flipped to a new page and pointed at a photo of Yuuri, no more than four years old, sitting at the piano, eyebrows knit in concentration and chubby toddler fingers poised over the keys. It’s only then that Victor makes the connection.

“I didn’t know Yuuri was a pianist,” he declares, staring at the grainy photograph.

“Oh, didn’t he tell you? He plays so beautifully, but I haven’t heard him in a while,” Yuuri’s mother sighs, and Victor frowns.

It’s then that he makes it his mission: he is going to hear Yuuri Katsuki play piano.

At first, he tries to be subtle. When he’s in the front lobby waiting for Yuuri so they can go on their morning run, he sits on the bench and fiddles with the keys until Yuuri is ready to go. On the rare occasions that Yuuri allows Victor inside his room, he hovers in the corner, fingers tracing the edges of the keyboard. As hard as he tries, his efforts seem to be pointless; Yuuri doesn’t even notice. Victor realizes that, like everything else he discusses with this man, he’s probably going to have to get straight to the point.

“Yuuri,” he says one morning at breakfast, and Yuuri glances up at him curiously from his bowl of oatmeal.

“What is it?” he asks, and Victor hesitates.

“Well, it’s just…how come I’ve never heard you play piano before?”

Yuuri blinks, caught off guard by the question. He sets his bowl down on the table and swallows hard. “How did you know I could play?”

“It wasn’t that hard to guess. You have that keyboard in your room, and the piano downstairs has obviously been used a lot. Plus…well, your mom showed me some pictures.”

Yuuri scowls, cheeks tinged with pink as he picks up his chopsticks. “Of course she did. Well, I don’t really play. I just taught myself a couple things over the years for fun and stuff, you know?”

“I don’t care. I still want to hear you sometime,” Victor declares, scooping a bite of egg into his mouth. Yuri shakes his head immediately.

“Oh, no. No way. I’m not even that good, Victor, I can’t—“

“Yuuuri,” Victor says in a singsong voice. “You’re going to play piano for me.”

Yuuri huffs, and for the first time Victor notices how truly uncomfortable he looks. “No, I’m not.”

Victor sighs, but gives in. “Fine,” he declares, and the conversation evaporates as Victor quickly launches into a rant about Yuri’s new training plan.

He hasn’t forgotten, however. He may have let it slide this time, but Victor has no intention of letting this go.

* * *

 

It’s a few weeks later when Victor and Yuuri start discussing his free program.

They’ve got the short program worked out completely—Yuuri’s eros is nearly perfect at this point, a fact that Victor is extremely proud to be the cause of—but they haven’t even begun discussing the free program.

Victor drops the idea of letting Yuuri pick his own music. Yuuri is hesitant at first, but eventually agrees, saying that he’ll contact a friend from Detroit who has mixed a piece for him in the past.

A week later, Yuuri bursts into Victor’s room at midnight and shoves the headphones into his ears without question, and through his half-asleep haze, Victor’s struck by how very Yuuri the song sounds.

The next day, they stand together at the rink and title the piece: _Yuri On Ice_.

Victor wonders where Yuuri got the piano part, but Yuuri doesn’t bring it up, so he doesn’t ask.

* * *

Victor thinks he couldn’t be more proud.

Yuuri has taken silver at the Grand Prix. He’s grown so much over the season, and Victor has had the pleasure of watching him transform from the meek, anxious sixth-place skater of last year into the glorious, terrifying beast that stands on the podium today. Yuuri’s confidence has multiplied by a hundredfold, and he no longer stands with his shoulders hunched or tries to hide from the cameras and the crowd. He bears his medal on his chest with pride for all the world to see and struts off the ice like he owns it, right into Victor’s arms.

He’s a different person now. He’s matured so much in so many ways, and the confidence he’s gained in himself is astonishing. There’s just one small thing left that weighs on the back of Victor’s mind and tortures his thoughts into the depths of night.

Victor still hasn’t heard him play piano.

Yuuri is living in Russia now, both for training and so that he and Victor don’t have to catch crazy flights on their days off just to see each other for a few hours at a time. He settles into Victor’s apartment easily enough, and Victor’s pretty sure he’s forgotten about the piano thing, or at least he thinks that Victor has and therefore doesn’t want to bring it up. Victor’s far from forgetting, though, and when Yuuri comes home on a random Thursday night after a long day of practice to find a flashy new upright in the corner of the living room, he’s more than a little startled.

“Victor,” he says in that one Yuuri-voice that means _I’m trying very hard not to kill you right now_ as he pads into the kitchen, “What is that?”

“What is what?” Victor asks innocently, turning away from the sink to smile widely at his fiancé.

“That _monstrosity_ in the living room,” Yuri snaps, and the facade vanishes. “Are you kidding? You bought me a piano?”

Victor blinks. “I thought you would like it.”

“I don’t even play piano anymore, Victor! Seriously, what were you _thinking_? Why would you go and waste your money on something stupid like that?”

Victor gapes for a second. Of all the reactions he was expecting, fury wasn’t one of them. “I just wanted to hear you play,” he says helplessly, and Yuuri scoffs, throwing his hands in the air.

“Why are you so caught up on this? I’m not going to play piano for you, okay?” he yells, and storms out of the kitchen without another word. Victor is left alone with a pile of dirty plates and the sound of the dripping sink, going over the conversation in his head and trying to figure out what he’d said wrong.

* * *

 

That night, when Victor climbs into bed, Yuuri scoots to the opposite edge, as far away from Victor as he can get. Victor stares at him helplessly for a moment before reaching out to lay a hand on his shoulder and softly says, “Yuuri.”

Yuuri abruptly rolls out of bed, tugging a blanket and pillow with him. “I’m going to sleep on the couch,” he mutters, and the door slams before Victor can even process what’s happening.

Victor spends the next two hours debating over whether or not he should go after him. On one hand, this is absolutely ridiculous—all couples fight, but Yuuri has never taken it to this extreme before, and Victor has absolutely no idea what he did wrong. He wants nothing more than to sit down and talk it out, but on the other hand, Victor knows Yuuri needs his space. In the end, he stays in bed, resolved to let Yuuri have some alone time that he seems to so desperately need. He curls in on himself, and if a tear or two slips out, he pretends not to notice.

Finally, after hours of ceaseless tossing and turning, Victor begins to tire. His eyelids droop, and he’s almost asleep when he hears the faint music begin to play. At first, he thinks it’s part of a dream, but then he recognizes the song, and he sits up so quickly his neck cracks. He’d know that song even if he forgot his own name.

He’s silent as he pads down the hall in his socks, and the music grows louder as he reaches the living room. It’s dark, and the only light in the room is from the full moon, filtering in through the window above the piano, where Yuuri is seated.

He’s wrapped in his blanket, and his back is to Victor, so he doesn’t notice when his fiancé comes to stand in the doorway. He’s laser focused, all concentration directed to the song spilling from his fingertips, and Victor stares in awe as Yuuri’s fingers fly over the keys. In the back of his mind, he thinks, _I knew he played the piano part himself._

Yuuri is lost in the song of his free program, and the sound of _Yuri On Ice_ fills the apartment with a delicate frost. Victor finds himself holding his breath as he watches Yuuri’s fingers dance across the keys. This is exactly what he’s been holding out for for so long, he realizes, eyes darting to the way Yuuri’s foot works the pedals. This made all the fights, all the dropped conversations, all the months of seemingly wasted effort worth it.

Yuuri had always insisted that he couldn’t play, and that he had only picked up a few tricks throughout the years for fun. That’s obviously a lie. Yuuri is incredible, Victor observes, noting the perfect use of the pedals and the flawless transition into the key change. Yuuri is playing the entire song, exactly note for note, and Victor can’t find a single thing out of place. He’s awestruck, to say the least.

The song ends too quickly. Yuuri improvises a few chords at the end before sitting back and wiping his face, shoulders slumping. Victor shifts his weight from one foot to the other, and the aged floorboards creak softly beneath his feet. Yuuri’s head shoots up, and he spins around to face Victor, who has been caught red-handed.

They stare at each other for a moment, the tension in the air thick enough to touch, and Victor flounders for a moment for something to say to break the silence. Yuuri beats him to it, however, by covering his face with his hands and sniffling. It takes Victor only a moment to realize he’s crying.

“Oh, Yuuri,” he says softly, and crosses the living room to wrap the love of his life in a bone-crushing hug.

“I’m so—I’m so _sorry_ —“ Yuuri gasps as he buries his face into Victor’s t-shirt, and Victor laughs, shushing him.

“No, no, _moye solnyshko_ , the fault is mine,” he sighs, and Yuuri sobs a little at the pet name.

“I didn’t mean to yell,” Yuuri chokes out, clutching Victor, if possible, closer. “I just—I hate playing in front of people, okay? I hate it. I always screw up, and I just—“ he breaks off, and Victor hums, running a hand through his hair.

“I’m sorry, my love. I shouldn’t have pushed you,” he apologizes, and Yuuri nods shakily. His fingers wind their way into the front of Victor’s now-soaked shirt, but Victor doesn’t mind. “I must say, though, you play absolutely beautifully.”

Yuuri flat-out sobs at that, and pulls Victor down so they’re eye to eye and brings him in for a tearful kiss. Victor cradles Yuuri’s face in his hands and closes his eyes, and when they break apart, Yuuri rests his head on Victor’s shoulder.

“Come back to bed?” Victor asks gently once Yuuri’s calmed down some, and Yuuri sighs and nods.

They fall asleep tangled in each other’s arms, and Victor holds Yuuri closer than he ever has before and makes a solemn promise to lighten up.

* * *

 

The next morning, they roll out of bed together. Victor stumbles into the kitchen and lights the stove, and when he turns to ask Yuuri how he wants his eggs, he quickly realizes that he’s the only person in the room.

He walks down the hall and calls for Yuuri, and when he peers into the living room, he spots him. Yuuri is seated at the piano, staring down at the keys, and when Victor questioningly asks, “Yuuri?” he turns and gives him a small smile.

He turns back to the keys, flourishes his wrists, and begins to play.

**Author's Note:**

> this was so STUPID what the fuck anywhom,,
> 
> thanx for readin shoot me a comment and hit me up on tumblr @onesingularyike for some Quality Pliroy Contente (cursed images) and other yoi shit (blessed images)


End file.
